Recycler
The Recycler is a versatile unit used by the GLA to capture and reverse-engineer enemy technology into usable weaponry for the truck and as exclusive upgrades for its units. Lore The Recycler Truck is a rugged, heavy duty engineering vehicle that is typically used by GLA salvage parties, informally known as 'scrap vultures' in the African territories, who scour the battlefield at night after the fighting has moved on in search for anything valuable that might be extracted from vehicle wreckage such as armour plates, weapons, munitions or machine parts. The GLA is known to inspect these components with great curiosity and reconfigure them for their own use against their previous owners. Description The Recycler, upon first inspection, is an unremarkable heavy-duty tipper truck with a crane attached to the box bed, available at the Hideout after the construction of a Black Market. In its base form, it has only two abilities. The first one is the ability for the Recycler Truck to deploy itself, repairing all vehicles in its vicinity, at the expense of leaving it stationary and vulnerable to enemy units. The second ability, however, is one of the definitive features of the GLA, and may make the Recycler one of the most valuable units in one's arsenal. As of v1.85, all Tier 1 and Tier 2 vehicles, upon their destruction, will leave specially marked salvage crates, which must be manually collected by the said ability. Due to the fact that the Recycler cannot benefit from salvage upgrades whatsoever, he may drive over any other salvage crates to his destination without collecting them, leaving them for your other units. The collection of the salvage crates takes a short while, during which it is stationary and defenseless as the crane operator lifts the salvage onto the truck bed. Upon acquisition of the said crate, it does two things: * Firstly, it allows one to, for free, transform the Recycler into one of ten combat/support units which pay homage to the enemy faction's iconic weaponry. * Secondly, it unlocks a free exclusive upgrade to a certain group of units, which is acquired on an individual basis. As of now, there are only a few unit groups that may benefit from the reverse-engineered technology, those being: * BM-21 Grads; * Ural Trucks; * Marauder Tanks and Scorpion Tanks; * Demo Trucks, Bomb Trucks, Terrorists and Demo Traps; * Quad Cannons and Technicals. The Recycling System With a total of five factions in Rise of the Reds, there are a total of ten different Recycler Truck variants and ten different unlockable upgrades/sidegrades, all of which can be seen in the Gallery section below. ECA Upon collection of Tier 1 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A long range, quad-barreled anti-tank gun system for the Recycler, whose fire rate can be toggled between single-barrel, dual-barrel or a full quad-barrel salvo. * Cluster Munitions for the Terrorist, Bomb Truck, Demo Truck and Demo Trap, which upon detonation scatter like mines, adding an extra hazard to the enemy and indirectly increasing their damage. Upon collection of Tier 2 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A crude, reverse-engineered Wotan microwave array mounted on the back of the Recycler, complete with an actual microwave for a power source. Unlike the ECA unit, this array is incapable of being calibrated to fire at airborne targets, which means that instead its scorching ray is blasted at ground targets, making it brutally effective against structures, and especially infantry, while not being as potent against heavily armored vehicles. * Canister Cannons for the Quad Cannon and the Technical, which replaces its standard armament with Flak munitions. These modified units gain a large amount of splash damage, ripping through infantry and aircraft with ease, at the expense of the shotgun-like projectiles being less effective against buildings and vehicles. China Upon collection of Tier 1 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * Napalm Canisters for the Terrorist, Bomb Truck, Demo Truck and Demo Trap, which add a small napalm firestorm after detonation. * A fast-firing five-barreled flamethrower mounted in the truck-bed of the Recycler, which lobs fireballs; effective against light vehicles, infantry and buildings. Upon collection of Tier 2 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * Comically hazardous Nuclear Engines, gutted from Chinese units and installed in the front of a Technical or a Quad Cannon. These engines greatly increase the speed of the units, so much in fact that the Technical, upon acceleration, performs a wheelie from the raw power. However, like the actual Chinese upgrade, they explode upon their destruction, which, without Isotope Stability being available to GLA, may make these units a danger to your own formations. * A "long-range, jet-powered, electro-magnetic cannon... thing", as the Recycler put it, is a trailer which, upon deployment, reveals a ghetto, literal jet-propelled, cannon, which lobs EMP shells at a respectable range that disable any vehicles in the impact area. Its fire rate being faster than the duration of the EMP, it can effectively stun-lock a small group of enemy units, making them easy pickings for your troops. GLA Upon collection of Tier 1 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A bigger, garbage truck-like bed that replaces the standard truck bed of the Recycler. This turns the unit into a valuable support unit, as it is capable of dropping salvage piles for your units, for a payment of 300 dollars per pile. While it may not contribute in the battle directly, its salvage will prove immensely useful in augmenting the firepower of your units. * Thematically meaning an abundance of traditional GLA weaponry, Rocket Pods, not unlike the ones mounted on the Rocket Buggies, can be installed on the turrets of Marauders and Scorpions, appreciably increasing their damage output. Upon collection of Tier 2 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A tanker, which replaces the flat bed, full of anthrax. Almost an equivalent to the Anthrax Bomb, this turns the Recycler into a single-use suicide unit, which, upon detonation, releases a massive cloud of anthrax and turns a large area into a no-mans-zone. The resulting contamination is a bane to infantry and lightly armored vehicles, which, considering the opposition, may constitute most of his army. But one must take care not to have an Anthraxcycler in his own group, for he may find himself in a very unfortunate position if it happens to be destroyed... * Owing to the same abundance of GLA materiel, Technicals and Quad Cannons can be outfitted with Suicide Packs. While not increasing their overall firepower in any way, they gain the ability to be used as makeshift suicide units, especially Technicals. Overall, if a unit finds itself swarmed by enemies, upon death, it may take some of them with him.. USA Upon collection of Tier 1 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A stolen drone trailer and a radar system, all covered by camo netting, installed in the back of the Recycler. This transforms it into a makeshift WASP, spawning four its own, humorously make-shift drones with improvised weaponry, including: four taped AK-47's, two drum-fed PK machine guns, a beer box re-purposed into a mortar, and a literal helicopter rocket pod. Note that the camo netting has no effect in-game. * In an ironic twist, the Marauders and Scorpions can be outfitted with Hover Drives, granting them many of the same benefits of the Hover Crusaders, such as greatly increased speed and the ability to traverse water. However, this means that some of the armor had to be sacrificed, which means that they are 20% more vulnerable to damage than the standard units. Upon collection of Tier 2 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * An air control trailer, radar system and two laser target designators mounted on the back of the Recycler. This thievery of USA assets allows the Recycler to send false coordinates to the US airforce by designating an area or a building for an air-strike. Once the two lasers have aligned themselves, and after a short while, an A-10 makes a sweeping dive and drops several bombs at the target location; note the bombs are in no way as potent as a Generals' Power A-10. Considering the long fire delay, it is best used, and most effective, on buildings. * Salvaging US missile technology, one can replace the rocket pods on his BM-21 Grads with a single large guided missile. This missile is capable of delivering the whole wallop of a salvo in a single strike, making it much more focused in its damage output. Like the standard Grad, it can also be upgraded with salvage, making it an extremely potent unit. But, as this is not a straight upgrade, but rather a side-grade, it has its downsides. Firstly, it can no longer switch between constant fire rate and barrage, now that the racks have been replaced by a single projectile. Secondly, the missile is susceptible to counter-measures, whereas the regular Grad missiles were not. And lastly, by losing the constant fire rate, its area denial abilities vanish almost completely. Russia Upon collection of Tier 1 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * A crude Tesla generator installed in the flat-bed. This particular derivative of a Tesla Tank cannot overcharge its coil, but nevertheless, it is extremely effective against ground targets, owing to the fact that the static charge conducts through several targets, be it through buildings, infantry or units. Furthermore, it does not need to charge, and fires at a constant rate, therefore, a large group of these can do gruesome damage if left unchecked. * Salvaged and Improvised Reactive Armor, which can be installed on Marauders and Technicals. While not as effective as the Russian upgrade, it still provides 20% resistance against missiles and explosives, and 10% resistance against tank guns, which will greatly help with survivability. Upon collection of Tier 2 salvage, the Recycler unlocks: * An intimidating, miniaturized Tremor AGAS system installed on the back of the Recycler. Once deployed, it will fire an inaccurate barrage over a decently long range, doing good damage against ground units. In groups, one can lay down an impressive bombardment upon enemy positions. * The Ural Truck may ditch its human Stinger operators in the favor of a dual SA-3 missile system. This side-grade greatly increases the damage per-rocket compared to the base unit, but in return it becomes slower to fire and react to incoming threats, which means that helicopters may prove troublesome for this variant. Downsides But, despite the immense theoretical power of the Recycler, it cannot win wars on its own. Its paper thin armor, which cannot be augmented by any means, extremely one-sided weaponry and a complete lack of an anti-air armament means that helicopters and aircraft are its total ruin, so one must make sure to support it with regular units, especially anti-air. What is more, the Recycler itself is quite expensive -- 1200 dollars per unit -- which means that you have to be in a financially fortuitous position in order to field a large number of them. Furthermore, the enemy will know that you aim to gain an advantage from his salvage, and may fight tooth and nail to deny it from you. Considering that salvage lasts for only 60 seconds, you have a very limited window of opportunity to salvage their technology. But once you do, the Recycler and the upgrades may open many new strategies for you to utilize, be it a Wotan spam or a fully-salvaged Marauder force, which was made possibly by your dump truck Recyclers. And in the end, if you have let the enemy field such a large force of these that he has completely decimated you, there is no-one but yourself to blame in allowing them free reign. Gallery RotR GLARecyclerChinaT1.jpg|Chinese Tier 1 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerChinaT2.jpg|Chinese Tier 2 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerECAT1.jpg|ECA Tier 1 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerECAT2.jpg|ECA Tier 2 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerGLAT1.jpg|GLA Tier 1 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerGLAT2.jpg|GLA Tier 2 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerRussiaT1.jpg|Russian Tier 1 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerRussiaT2.jpg|Russian Tier 2 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerUSAT1.jpg|USA Tier 1 Recycler RotR GLARecyclerUSAT2.jpg|USA Tier 2 Recycler Category:Vehicles Category:Global Liberation Army Category:GLA vehicles